News to Note, December 1, 2007

1. World's Longest Mud Slide

A team of researchers reporting in the journal Nature recently has described a catastrophic landslide that dumped 225 billion metric tons of sediment into the ocean in just a few days or less.

2. Sunday School Sans God

For a new generation of children, Sunday school isn’t about Bible stories and singing songs about Jesus—instead, for atheist children, it’s about encouraging “personal expression, intellectual curiosity and collaboration.”

3. Evolutionary Big Bang: Information Explosions

Scientists have been forced to propose an evolutionary “big bang” to explain an evolutionary conundrum Charles Darwin referred to as an “abominable mystery.”

4. Naturally Forming Crystal DNA

The search for evidence for abiogenesis has uncovered a new “candidate”: DNA in liquid crystal phases that “self-orients” and stacks into columns.

5. Migrant Native Americans

A new genetic study conducted at the University of Michigan “bolsters claims that Native Americans are descended from one migrant group that crossed a lost land link from modern Siberia to Alaska,” reports Agence France-Presse.